


A Good Deal

by FrenchRoast



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Rumbelle is Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:19:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6872014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: AU: Bae (or Neal) is reading Pay it Forward for school (or whatever) and convinces his father to do one good deed a day for a week. Mr. Gold can hardly be blamed if all his good deeds somehow benefit the pretty librarian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Deal

When Rumple had agreed to do one good deed a day for a week if Bae got all A’s on his report card, he’d thought it a fair exchange, especially since Rumple never thought he’d have to do it. Baelfire was a smart kid, but in a way that tended to get him into trouble. Then again, the boy was usually capable of anything he set his mind to do.

When the entire months of both October and November passed without a call from his teacher Miss Margaret, Rumple should’ve known the jig was up, but he’d been so pre-occupied with preparing the shop and the house for the holidays that he hadn’t realized. Bae wanted to be Robin Hood for Halloween, and then he’d been cast as the turkey for the Thanksgiving play, so he’d had to make two costumes, one of which was devilishly complicated--and a little morbid, considering what happens to turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Now the quarter had ended, and Bae had come home, report card in hand. Two weeks until Christmas. The column of As made Rumple beam with pride for his son, even as a tiny pit formed at the bottom of his stomach. The people in this town hated him. They would think he was playing some kind of Scroogesque trick on them.

But a deal was a deal.

Rumple decided to start with something simple. He had lots of things in his shop that no one was likely to buy, but that anyone would appreciate having. Donating an item from his shop would be easy enough.

 

-Sunday morning, he took a look around, and his eyes fell on a nice leather bound copy of Grimm’s fairy tales, and next to it, a richly illustrated edition of 1001 Arabian Nights. No one ever looked at them, and they weren’t editions that were so rare it would be a tragedy if something happened to them. They’d be a perfect donation to the local library. The librarian could add them to the collection, or at least include them in the annual book sale. He wrapped them up with a note that they were a donation in honor of his son Baelfire, but for the librarian to please do whatever she wished with them, and left the package in the library dropbox. He would’ve gone inside, but the library was closed.

-Monday, Rumple had no idea what he was going to do for his good deed until he stopped by Granny’s to pick up his daily coffee. Instead of the usual $2, he handed Ruby $5. She started to open the drawer to make change, but he waved her off. “I want to pay for the next coffee someone comes in to buy, and you keep the extra as a tip.” He was on his way out when he heard Ruby say “Don’t worry, Mr. Gold already paid for your coffee.”

“Who’s Mr. Gold?”

“You see the man with the cane, walking out the door? That’s him.”

Two seconds later, a pretty young brunette almost ran into him as she barreled out the door. “Mr. Gold? I wanted to say thank you,” she said, cup of coffee in her hand.

“It’s just a cup of coffee, but you’re welcome.”

“It’s not just the coffee. I’m Belle French, the town librarian, and I wanted to thank you for the book donations, too. You have wonderful timing--the children’s hour this week is all about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.”

Unsure what else to do, Rumple smiled. “I’m glad the donations were useful. Though I might suggest you not use the Arabian Nights book for children’s hour. Some of the stories are rather-”

“Oh, I would never! No, that’s going in the adult section.”

“Our library has an adult section?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she said, growing flustered. “I mean it won’t be in the children’s area. It’ll be with the rest of the fiction. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you from anything, I just wanted to thank you,” the librarian said before retreating back into Granny’s. Rumple walked on to his shop, chuckling to himself.

-Tuesday, Rumple bought a raffle ticket being hawked by his good friend Jefferson, who was raising money for the community center. “How is that doing a good deed, Dad?” Bae asked when his father told him what his good deed had been for the day. “If you win, you get something worth a lot more than that raffle ticket.

“I doubt I’ll win, but if I do, I’ll give the prize away. Fair enough?”

Baelfire considered for a moment. “Okay, fair.”

-Wednesday was the day he closed the shop up early, and no good deed had presented itself by the time Rumple closed at 2. He decided to walk into town and see what he could do, and as he approached the library, he noticed the pretty librarian struggling to pick up a large cardboard box that the delivery man had simply left next to the book drop.

“Can I offer you some help?”

She looked up from the box she had not managed to lift, her hair wild and her face red from the effort. “That would be great. There’s supposed to be three computers in here, and I’ve got to get them inside and set up with the others before the writing workshop at 4.”

Even though Miss French was tiny and he had a limp, the two of them were, with some effort, able to get the box inside and onto the circulation desk so the librarian could go through its contents. Before they could really recover, before Miss French had even taken the computers and their components out, a flood of children poured in through the doors.

“Oh no,” the librarian sighed. “I’d completely forgotten the kindergarten was coming over for a special story hour at 2:30. There’s no way I can get the computers set up in time.”

“What are you doing for the story hour? Could I help?”

“We’re reading through the book of fairy tales you donated, actually. But I do voices and act things out. I doubt that’s your cup of tea.”

“You’d be surprised. My son Baelfire loved my bedtime stories when he was their age. Let me try--if I’m terrible, you take over and you won’t be any worse off than you already are. I’d offer to help with the computers, but I’m no good at it. I’d accidentally short something and set them on fire.”

With only a little hesitation, Miss French acquiesced. “Kids!” she called to gather them around the storytelling chair. “Mr. Gold is the nice man who gave the library this book of stories we started reading on Monday, and he’s going to be your storyteller today. Can we all clap for Mr. Gold?”

Most of the kids clapped as Rumple sat down in the storytelling chair. It was upholstered in worn red velvet that had seen better days. He opened the book and began to read. Like Miss French, he used different voices for the different characters, but he didn’t just read the story--he embellished it, weaving in details that made it sound as if he’d been right there with the Goose Girl and Rapunzel. The children sat, enraptured.

As the children left with their teacher, Mr. Gold walked over to Miss French, who was now connecting the computers to the wifi. “Did I do okay? I hope the children weren’t bored.”

“You were amazing. I couldn’t see everything, but I could hear you. I don’t think we’ve ever had a better story hour. You’re welcome to step in any time.”

“That’s very kind of you, Miss French, but I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of your storytelling presence. I’m glad I was able to be of help.”

Truth be told, he had greatly enjoyed the storytelling. And he had also enjoyed helping Miss French again.

-Thursday, he showed up at the library at lunch time with hamburgers and fries from Granny’s. He told himself he hadn’t planned to eat lunch with Miss French, but when she asked if he would join her, he didn’t protest, either. They had so much fun Rumple lost track of time and had to dash back to his shop for a 2pm appointment with his furniture appraiser.

That evening, Baelfire was a little skeptical. “So your good deed was having a lunch date with Miss French?”

“I brought her lunch. It wasn’t a date, but I didn’t want to be rude and say I didn’t want to eat with her. That wouldn’t have been nice.”

The doorbell rang before they could discuss it further. It was Jefferson, and he had two tickets in his hand.

“You won the raffle, Rumple! Two tickets to the Christmas concert on Saturday. Best seats in the house--towards the front, but not so close to the stage that your eyes cross.”

“I already know who he’s going to give them to,” Bae piped up from the kitchen.

-Friday, Rumple went straight to the library. Tickets in hand, he offered them to Miss French. “If you already have tickets, you could have these and give the others to someone. They’re supposed to be the best seats for the performance.”

Miss French looked at the tickets in Mr. Gold’s hand. “I usually go every year; my mother loved to sing Christmas carols and being there is like hearing her sing again...but they were sold out by the time I was able to get to the box office this year. How did you even get these?”

He shrugged. “I bought a raffle ticket and won. I was trying to do a good deed buying the raffle ticket, so I said I’d give them away if I won.”

“Well...thank you. I accept. But on one condition. You have to come with me.”

“Surely you have someone else you could go with besides me.”

“I could ask my dad, but he hates Christmas music for the same reason I love it. Besides, I think I’d have a much better time with you.”

“Miss French, that’s-”

“Belle,” she cut him off. “Call me Belle.”

Rumple could feel a blush rising to his cheeks as they made plans to meet for the concert the next day.

-Saturday, Rumple bought two dozen roses in a mix of colors. As he made his way from the flower shop to the library, he handed roses off as he ran into people. A pale pink rose for Grace as he passed Jefferson and his daughter, who were already en route to the concert. A red rose each for Granny and Ruby as he stepped briefly into the diner. Yellow rose for Emma, dark pink for Regina, the both of them having hot drinks inside the diner. A white rose for Snow, who was out with her husband and new baby. Excepting Grace, who was a child and didn’t question being given lovely things, none of them knew how to react with anything but confusion. The remaining roses he gave to Belle when she opened her apartment door, just next to the library.

Two and a half hours later, after Rumple had walked her back to her apartment after the concert, Belle paid his generosity back with the briefest of kisses.

“I think you should come around the library much more often, Rumplestiltskin,” she said with a smile. “I’m sure we can find more good deeds for you to do.”


End file.
